


The Beginning

by Princess_Aleera



Series: The Mute!Cas Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Communication Failure, Dean is a dick, Dean is not emotionally equipped for this shit, Dean/Castiel pre-slash, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotionally Repressed, Fallen Castiel, Falling hard and fast, Gen, Hallucifer, Minor Character Death, Mute Castiel, Post-Hell Issues, Quitting cold turkey, Seriously - a lot of angst, Suicidal Thoughts, force-feeding for the sake of survival, halluci!john, the great wall of sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:38:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Aleera/pseuds/Princess_Aleera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Where a mission goes horribly wrong, and Castiel gets his wings plucked off for it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Left It Cold, Left It Dead

**Author's Note:**

> All chapter titles are quotes from Marina + The Diamond songs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where everything goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The violence-related tags all apply to this chapter; after, the hurt will mostly be psychological. That said, this chapter is a lot of hurt and no comfort. Good luck!

They have Bobby on beck-and-call. They should be four against one, after all- Dean, Sam, Balthazar and Castiel against Raphael. Castiel had wanted the Winchesters to stay out of this, but after a five-minute screaming match between him and Dean (though to be fair, only Dean was shouting- Castiel was quietly unreasonable), Balthazar had pressed his palms against the human brothers’ foreheads and transported them here.

As it is, it’s a good thing Dean and Sam followed. Otherwise, the angels would probably be dead already.

Dean circles Crowley again, looking for an opening. The old demon’s surprisingly fast and agile- even with Sam by his side, Dean hasn’t been able to gank the goddamn demon. On the other end of the room Castiel’s fighting Raphael, though a part of Dean (a part he refuses to acknowledge) knows that Castiel is losing. Balthazar, who should have been fighting Raphael alongside Castiel, is busy trying to gank one of Raphael’s henchmen. Or henchwomen, as it were. Dean thinks her name is Rachel, but he’s not sure.

A sharp cry of pain lets them all know that Rachel’s got an opening with Balthazar. He’s still standing, still fighting, but Dean can see his side is matted with blood and he looks pale. He doesn’t have time to worry about it, though, because Raphael uses the momentum to blast a _something_ of light across the room. It hits Sam square in the face, and he topples over. “Sam!” Dean yells.

Sam shakes and spasmes, eyes open but unseeing, and no no _fucking no_. “What did you _do_?!” Dean snarls at the archangel, careful to keep himself between Sam and Crowley. Raphael doesn't bother to acknowledge him; her eyes once again fully focused on Castiel.

“Ah,” Crowley purrs as he takes a look at Sam’s seizing body. “I believe Raph just sent him on a _little_ trip down Memory Lane.”

Dean’s eyes widen. Hell. Sam’s goddamn decades of Hell. No. “He can’t,” he says without hope and doesn't say _"not again" >_ and the demon laughs.

After that, everything happens too fast. There’s a blast of white light to Dean’s left that knocks him to his knees, and Crowley’s blasted out of the room by the force - though Dean’s sure he’s not seriously harmed, because the bastard always seems to pop back up when they think he’s dead. After the light dims and vanishes, Dean blinks his eyes open to see Raphael’s henchwoman on the floor. Her scorched wings are still burning, and Balthazar’s on his knees, looking utterly exhausted. His face is pinched in grief, and with his free hand he's clutching at the bleeding wound in his side. Cas looks much the same right beside him, eyes regretful, but Raphael is as cold as always.

Before Balthazar has time to get back up, Raphael has crossed the few feet between them. “No!” Dean screams just as Castiel does, but it’s too late. Raphael buries her sword in Balthazar’s body, and the blond angel throws his head back as the white light once again blows through the room.

Dean’s eyes hurt and he’s on his back on the ground, panting. Everything went so wrong - Sam’s still unconscious, and Balthazar’s dead. The only angel willing to help Castiel apart from Gabriel is dead, and it’s their fault. Dean tries to get up, but when he puts his hand on the ground he’s met with a cool, metal _something_. It slices open his palm and Dean hisses with pain, before opening his eyes and looking down.

It’s Balthazar’s sword. He must have thrown it towards Dean as he was dying - his last action was to provide Dean (the one who failed him) with the means to kill Raphael.

“There,” Raphael’s soft voice rings through the room, and Dean hides the short, thin, sharp sword in the sleeve of his jacket. The way he’s sprawled on the ground from after the blast means the sword was hidden from Raphael’s view, and if he’s lucky, she hasn’t seen it. Dean turns around and freezes, even though he already knows what sight awaits him.

Castiel is on his knees, his trenchcoat flowing over his legs, facing Dean. He doesn’t look at Dean, though- his gaze is caught on his dead friend and brother on the floor between them. Raphael stands behind him, her sword pressing against Castiel’s throat.

“Balthazar,” Castiel whispers. “ _Neëg nhaím, zeitilith._ ” The words ring with sorrow and loss, and seem to physically swipe over the room as the angel utters them. Dean's Enochian is sketchy at best, but he knows the meaning of this phrase. _Goodbye, my brother_. He swallows, hard.

“Yes, it was an unnecessary loss,” Raphael says. “So much bloodshed could have been spared, if you had stayed away tonight.”

“I could not let you open Purgatory and end the world,” Castiel says quietly, but thrumming with righteous fury. He’s still staring at Balthazar’s body.

“I must admit your little plan worked to some extent,” Raphael sighs, as if this is only a minor setback in her plan. But the time’s up now - the Gate is closed, and not even the Archangel Raphael can open the damn floodgates and end the world. Dean smirks humorlessly where he half-stands, half-sits on the other side of the room, watching the two of them.

“But no matter. I have you now. I can finally rid Heaven of you, and the Winchesters.” She smirks. “ _So_ thoughtful of you to bring the mud-monkeys along, Castiel.”

Dean sees Castiel’s eyes widen and snap up to meet Dean’s. Sam is a still lump in the corner of the room. “No,” is all the younger angel says.

Raphael presses the sword harder against Castiel’s throat, and the lesser angel hisses as a trickle of blood trails down his neck from the shallow cut. “Why on Earth should I not, _brother_? After all, they have played their parts. Lucifer is in the Cage, and so is Michael. All the Winchesters are now are common, annoying, _interfering_ humans. I have no need for them.”

“Please,” Castiel gasps against the metal. “If you wish to kill me, do so. But let Dean and Sam go. Even if Heaven has no need for them, Earth does.”  
Dean stares into those blue eyes and tries to think, to pray, hoping that the angel can hear him. In case this is goodbye. ( _Because_ this is goodbye.)

Raphael bends down to hiss into Castiel’s ear. “Do you envy these mud-monkeys so much. brother, that you would rather give your life than for me to break their fragile bodies? They are _short-lived_ , Castiel. They are _dispensable_.”

“Not to me,” Castiel whispers, and Dean’s heart breaks a little. “I do not fear death, Raphael. Two years by their side have taught me more about humanity than all my years watching from Heaven - I know more than you will ever know, loved more than you will ever love, and for that I pity you.”

“Pity?” Raphael hisses, and she looks furious now. Like Castiel spat her verbally in the face - like Dean’s pretty sure he just did. “You _pity_ me, Castiel? If you are so fond of humanity, then why not join it?”

Castiel freezes. His gaze flickers, before once again fixing on Dean. Dean realizes, with a jolt, that this is the first time he has seen Castiel frightened. Well and truly _terrified._ And Dean doesn’t know why.

“Do with me what you will,” Castiel says in a low voice, and to his credit it barely trembles. “As long as you spare Dean and Sam.”

“So valiant,” Raphael says with a feral grin, and places her free hand on Castiel’s neck. “So naïve.”

“Hey!” Dean blurts out, desperate to stop this - whatever this is - from happening. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Balthazar’s sword is a comforting weight inside his left sleeve, but he’s too far away to get over to Castiel in time. By the time he’s on his feet, Raphael will have had time to slit Castiel’s throat.

For the first time in minutes, Raphael looks Dean in the eyes. “I am giving your angel what he wants,” she says in a faux-pleasant voice. “Enjoy humanity, brother.” And she curls her hand around something on Castiel’s back - something Dean can’t see - and _pulls_.

Dean has never heard Castiel in pain. He has _seen_ it, yes, seen Castiel flutter into Bobby’s living room covered In bruises and bloody cuts, slumping until the only things holding him up are Dean and Sam. But he has never heard Castiel grunt in pain, suck in a sharp breath, hiss - nothing.

Now, Castiel _screams_. Dean sees his body go rigid, all his muscles taut, head thrown back and eyes closed as he howls in agony. His True Voice is bleeding in with his human one, hurting Dean’s ears until he has to clamp his hands over them, accidentally nicking his ear with the tip of Balthazar’s sword.

But it doesn’t stop. Raphael keeps smiling her small, almost soft smile as she rips Dean’s angel apart with her bare hands, and Castiel wails louder and more piercing than any human could ever do. That goddamn, beautiful, white light is pouring out of Castiel’s mouth and eyes, and from his back - it hurts Dean’s eyes and he knows he has to do something _now_. He can’t just sit here and listen to his angel’s dying screams.

Dean gets up and runs, his mind reeling with a sudden realization - _she’s pulling out his wings, oh god; like a kid plucking off a butterfly’s wings just for the fun of it -_ and it’s only when he nears the angels that he can see the blood. Castiel’s trenchcoat is matted with it, the red seeping into the fabric and coloring it a dark brown, and Raphael’s still wearing that serene smile that reminds Dean so much, _so much_ of Lucifer wearing his own brother, and then Dean’s plunging Balthazar’s sword into Raphael’s neck and she _finally_ stops grinning.

Dean shuts his eyes against the light, but his eyes still burn. His ears are bleeding too, and then everything is quiet and dark and he’s on his knees again, feeling the rough concrete through his jeans. He opens his eyes to see the archangel’s vessel on her back, eyes open. The wing prints are massive - even bigger than Gabriel’s. They stretch across the whole room, blending with Balthazar’s and Rachel’s wings, and it sickens Dean to think of her taint smudging Balthazar’s ashes.

He turns. “Cas?”

Castiel has stopped screaming. Now he just lies there in a boneless heap on the floor, face down and body eerily still. His trenchcoat is soaked with blood, maroon still seeping into the fabric, spreading out in a web-like pattern across the angel’s back. His eyes are closed, his mouth open and slack, blood seeping out of it and dripping slowly, sluggishly onto the floor.

“Cas? Castiel?” Fuck, he’s scared now. The sight of his angel so pale, so bloody, so _lifeless_ scares the shit out of Dean. But that’s nothing against that sickening feeling that washes over him when he sees the wings. The scorched, ashen imprints of Castiel’s _wings_. “Oh no, no no no,” Dean mumbles and clutches the shirt front of his best friend. “No, Cas, _please_ ,” he hitches, turning him around so he can see the angel’s face fully. “Not again…”

Castiel looks serene, head lolling gently when Dean moves him. There’s a smudge of blood under his left eye and a trickle down the sides of his mouth. Dean puts his hands on Castiel’s face, carefully wipes away the dark red smudges with the pad of his thumb. _He’s not even cold yet_ , Dean thinks and wants to throw up, and the next thing he knows he’s cradling his angel in his arms, holding him close, squeezing so hard he thinks Castiel would hurt if he were still alive, and he can feel Castiel’s blood cover his hands, warm and thick, and Dean buries his head in his dead angel’s neck like he did with Sammy’s body four years and a lifetime ago.

Dean stays still, trying to breathe, the scent of burned feathers blending in with the rusty, dry smell of blood, and wishes he could make another Crossroads deal.

~*~


	2. Left It Cold, Left It Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where there is breath._

There’s something wrong. Something different. Dean doesn’t understand at first, because his brain refuses to believe it, but then it hits him like a punch in the face. Breath. There are small puffs of breath ghosting across the side of his neck, where Castiel’s face is hidden.  
  
Castiel is breathing.  
  
“Cas?” Dean whispers and pulls back, terrified that it’s just his exhausted mind playing tricks of him. But he can see it now: Castiel has a pulse. A slow, sluggish pulse, and _oh my God he’s still alive how can he be alive_. He doesn’t care. Right now, Dean doesn’t care and they just need to get out of here, because if he hasn’t lost Castiel yet, then fuck if he’s gonna lose him at all. “Fuck,” Dean says, because he has to say _something_ so he doesn’t explode with relief. He shakes Castiel lightly. “Cas? Cas!” No reaction. Castiel still looks dead as ever, still pale and bloody with scorched wings. But he’s breathing, and that’s enough for Dean right now. “Sam? Sammy?”  
  
A quiet groan from across the room tells him that Sam’s coming around. Dean prays that his brother’s somewhat okay, and flips out his phone. “Bobby?”  
  
“You're still alive, then?” comes the old hunter’s gruff voice, but Bobby sounds worried. “You all right down there?”  
  
“I am,” Dean says. “Sam’s a little under the weather, but I think he’s gonna be okay." _Hope. Hope he's gonna be okay._ "Raphael mojoed him. Bobby - I need you to get down here.” They both hear the _right the fuck now_ at the end.  
  
“What is it?” Bobby asks. “Or who?”  
  
“Cas,” Dean gets out. “He’s- I don’t even know. Bobby, Balthazar’s dead. Raphael killed him, and-“ he grips the phone harder and closes his eyes, voice lowering into a whisper. “Bobby - I think Cas is human.”  
  
Bobby’s quiet for a long while. “You sure about that, boy?”  
  
“No, but he ain’t an angel no more.” Dean breathes out of his mouth, the stench of blood and burned feathers making him sick. “Just - get down here, would you?”  
  
“Comin’ in a bit,” Bobby reassures him. “Hang in there, kid.”  
  
Dean hangs up and pulls away from Castiel’s still form, stumbling over to his brother. Sam’s eyes are wide and staring at the ceiling, glazed over and feverish. He’s whining quietly, a low sound in the back of his throat, and Dean curses under his breath.  
  
“C’mon, Sammy, snap out of it,” Dean mutters and shakes Sam. “I can’t have you goin’ crazy on me right now.”  
  
“Please, don’t,” Sam whispers to someone not there, breathing raspy and uneven.  
  
“Sam!” Dean barks and shakes harder. “Snap the fuck out of it!”  
  
“Stop, stop, stop,” Sam keeps mumbling, quiet and frozen in place. The whining keeps getting louder. Dean’s starting to worry Raphael’s mojo broke Sam permanently, but- _no_. Dean’s not gonna let that happen. Sam’s struggled with his Hell-memories for the better part of a _year_ , Dean holding his hand when he seized and Cas keeping him down with his mojo to stop Sam from hurting himself. They should be clear of that now - Sam was doing good. He was doing _fine_.  
  
“We’ll get you up and working again, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, and Sam hitches a sharp breath. He waits by his brother’s side - doesn’t have the courage to stay with Castiel, in case he’ll find that there isn’t a pulse, was never a pulse, and Dean’s alone - until Bobby comes. They have to carry Castiel out first, into Bobby’s van, before they go back to get Sam.  
  
“That’s a heck of a lotta blood,” Bobby points out when they’re back in the van, “but his pulse is strong. D’you have any idea what Raphael did to him?”  
  
“I think…” Dean stares at the angel’s unmoving form. “I think she ripped out his Grace with her bare hands.” The thought is sickening and rings unbelievable in his ears, but he can't think of any other explanations. _Cas's wings prints._  
  
“Well damn,” Bobby says quietly, and that seems as good a reaction as any. “We’d better take a look at the damage, then.”  
  
They pull off Castiel’s trenchcoat and once-white-now-maroon shirt, and Bobby gives Dean some clean paper towels from an old Kleenex box under the front seat, so they can wipe off the blood and see the damage beneath.  
  
“Holy fuck,” Dean whispers when he sees. Bobby just nods.  
  
Almost all of Castiel’s skin is ripped open in his back, the wounds still oozing blood, and Dean can spot bare flesh and muscles underneath. It reminds Dean of the ground after a tree’s been knocked over by the storm, its roots ripped out by the storm’s force. Raphael ripped Castiel’s roots out, and left a fucking _mess_ of his skin behind. _No wonder Cas was screaming_ , Dean thinks and lets out a sharp breath. “We can’t take him to a hospital lookin’ like this, Bobby,” he says quietly.  
  
Bobby shakes his head and puts a hand on his shoulder. “If it didn’t kill him already, it ain’t gonna. Let’s get him patched up good when we get back.”  
  
Dean just nods, and stays in the back of the van when Bobby starts driving. He sits there and watches over Castiel, who’s still unconscious, and Sam, who’s still twitching and mumbling nonsensical words to himself. Dean closes his eyes and prays.  
  
 _Just let them wake up, God - I don’t even care if they’re okay. I will fucking_ **make** _them okay. Do you hear me? I’ll make this okay even if it kills me. And if you wanna help, this is the time._  
  
 _A-fucking-men._  
  


~*~


	3. Dreaming Something Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where there is waiting. And waiting… and waiting._

The first two days with Sam are like the broken wall all over again. Sam trapped in an eternal cycle of his own memories, unable to get out and acknowledge the real world around him. Like the last time, Dean sits in a chair by Sam's bedside in Bobby's panic room, and hopes it won't take his brother weeks and weeks to become coherent and okay and _Sam_ again. Sam thrashes occasionally, and still hasn't recognized Dean. One the other side of the room is another foldable bed, even smaller, where Cas rests. Dean sits in the middle, so he can watch over both his boys.

Cas hasn’t woken up at all. It’s been three days, and Dean would be out of his mind with worry if it weren’t for the fact that Cas’s wounds are slowly healing. The angel - if he is an angel anymore - seems to be in some sort of coma or stasis, sleeping and resting. Dean thinks maybe Cas’s body just needs some time to recharge before he resurfaces. So he waits, patiently, for his angel to wake up and his brother to snap out of the Hell Raphael rebuilt in his mind.

It’s the fourth day when Sam whispers ‘Dean’ for the first time. Dean wakes with a jolt and scrambles out of his chair to kneel by his brother’s bedside. “Sam? Hey, Sammy, you here?”

“Dean, where’s Dean,” Sam mumbles, eyes flickering, fists opening and closing desperately.

“Right here, Sammy,” Dean says and takes one of Sam’s hands.

Sam frowns and curls his hand around Dean’s, looking surprised. His eyes are still staring at nothing - he looks blind, Dean thinks. “… Dean? Dean? Dean, Dean, Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me, it’s Dean.” He keeps talking to Sam, and Sam keeps asking for him in a small, young voice, but his hand refuses to let go of Dean's and he counts that as a good sign. They sit like this for hours on end, Bobby coming in every now and then. He brings Dean some food, a beer, stays around for a while before disappearing back up. Dean gets why he doesn’t stick around; Bobby’s tired. Tired of watching Sam struggle for his sanity, of watching Dean drink himself into a stupor. Tired of watching Cas too, Dean supposes - after three years of having Cas to guard their backs, Bobby considers him a friend. Maybe even family.

Dean’s not gonna ask about that. Doesn’t have the strength to.

He nurses his beer before he’s had enough and goes to find the Jack, when he can’t listen to Sam mumble “Dean, Dean” anymore without wanting to drive his head through the iron wall. He goes up to Bobby’s study and finds the bottle, contemplates getting a glass (as if that will make him less of an alcoholic), before he decides to fuck all pretense and takes an (un)healthy swig.

“ It's a little early, don’t you think?” comes Bobby’s voice from behind him.

Dean shrugs and turns. “Well, y’know what they say. Five o’clock somewhere.” He takes another swig and tries to ignore the way Bobby’s eyes look. They’re not… defeated, per se. Just too much like John’s.

Bobby doesn’t say anything else, and Dean goes back down in the basement. When he walks into the panic room, Sam is looking back at him.

Sam is _looking_ at him.

“Sammy!” He’s there in a minute, hands cradling his brother’s face. “Hey! You with me?”

“Dean?” Sam says, but it’s different now, relieved. Like he’s there, in this room, and not in Hell. “Wuh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

“Lucifer,” Sam gasps and grabs Dean’s arms so hard it hurts. “It, he- Dean-“

“I know, we’ve been through this before, remember?” He twists out of Sam’s bruising grip only so he can entwine their fingers; knows it grounds Sam. It did the last time they went through this.

“Weyh?” Sam says and scrunches up his face, as if trying to remember. He’s still moving in and out of his head, Dean realizes.

“Yeah?” Sam would punch him for using this baby-voice if he was in his right mind, Dean’s sure. But he’s not - Sam’s barely in his mind at all, never mind a right one. “You remember?”

“Last- last time?” Sam asks, voice scruffy. “Yeah, I- last time?”

Dean sighs. “When Cas just got you out of the Cage. You remember that, don’t you? That first month?”

“I’d-“ Sam closes his eyes and shakes his head, like a dog shaking off a fly. “First muh…” Something seem to clear in his scrambled head. “Raphael. Balthaz- Cas-“ he’s trying to sit up, but the restraints around his arms and ankles won’t let him. “I have to, Crowley, I have-“

“Shush, Sammy,” Dean says. “It’s happened, it’s finished. Nothin’ you can do about it now. Now, I’ll tell you all about it if you _just calm down_. You got me?”

Sam panics for another moment, trying to see around Dean and get up, before he remembers Dean again and relaxes. “Yeah, I, yeah. Raphael- he mojoed me?”

Dean nods. “Yeah, he did. Sent you a trip down Memory Lane.”

“Not-“ Sam says and takes a deep breath. “Not fun.”

“Damn right it isn’t. You’ve been out of it for four days, almost.”

“That long? What about them?” ‘Them’ must be the angels and Crowley, Dean assumes.

“We got it done,” he sighs and squeezes his brother’s hands. “Raphael’s dead, her angel woman too.”

“Rachel?” Sam asks.

“Heck if I know her name. How’d you remember that? You’re supposed to be wacko.”

Sam grins a toothy grin that makes him look like a six-year old, all proud and shit. Dean can’t help but a smile a little back. “So we’re all okay?” Sam asks, and Dean’s smile falters. His brother notices. “We’re not? Who’s not?”

“Balthazar, he… Raphael killed him.”

Sam flinches. “Shit,” he whispers, and he sounds almost like old Sam again. “And Cas?”

“Cas is…” Dean looks over at the other bed. “We don’t know yet.”

“Whuh?” Sam leans up on his elbows to glance over. “Cas? Wha’s he…”

“I don’t know, Sammy,” Dean murmurs. “But I think Raphael might’ve yanked his Grace outta him.”

“Wha? Can they- angels don’t- Cas?” Sam rambles before he takes a deep breath and goes quiet.

“I dunno. But she ripped _something_ outta him, alright. His back was all-“ Dean cuts himself off and lets out a slow breath. “It wasn’t pretty. Thought we lost him there for a bit.”

Sam stares at him for a long time, eyes shifting in and out of focus. He’s working hard, Dean can see, to stay here and not go wandering back off to his personal Hell. “ ‘s that bad, was it,” he finally says, quiet.

Dean just nods. After a while he helps Sam up; unfastens his restraints so he can get something to eat and drink. While Sam eats, Dean goes to get Bobby.

“Good to see you off the crazy again, kid,” Bobby says when he comes down. Dean smirks at how ridiculously happy Sam seems to be.

“Yeah, yeah me too. Not cr- not good. Nice.” He shakes his head and sends Bobby another one of those loopy smiles.

“Still a little out of it,” Dean murmurs and Bobby nods with a huff. Dean stays with Sam, who falls asleep after eating - exhausted after trying to keep in the here and now. For the next three days, they talk to keep Sam out of his head. Bobby stays around just enough to know they’re okay, and researches for loose ends after Raphael or Eve in the meantime.

“He doesn’t like me,” Sam whispers in one of his bad periods, eyes wide.

“Who?” Dean asks from his chair.

“Bobby. Doesn’t- doesn’t like me. Anymore. Doesn’t. Doesn’t.” And he keeps shaking his head, mumbling words that start out as ‘Bobby’ and turns into ‘Dad’ before they sound like ‘Dean’ again.

Dean lets the cycle go around; knows he won’t be able to snap Sam out of it. He waits until Sam’s mumbles quiet down before getting him a glass of water. “You done for now?”

“ ‘sin me, ‘sall in me,” Sam mumbles, gaze skittering away, but he grabs the glass like a lifeline and gulps down some water. He drinks until he starts coughing, spluttering it all out and onto his chest. “Sorry, ‘m so sorry,” he whispers.

“It’s fine, Sammy. It’s no big.”

“No big, no big.”

It’s just like the last time, and Dean wants to scream in frustration. But it’s faster this time; it’s like Sam remembers the instruction manual, and even if he’s struggling, he’s getting there. So he just sits there, watching over his brother, glancing at his sleeping angel every now and then. When Sam’s asleep he drinks, the bitter taste of Jack washing down the stuff he wants to shout out loud.

Sometimes he talks to Cas. He doesn’t know why - maybe because Cas reminds him of a comatose person, and you’re supposed to talk to them to make them get back to you. Maybe it’s just because he’s bored.Or because he just needs to hear Cas's voice.

It leaves him with a sickening feeling of guilt when Cas doesn’t respond, doesn’t wake up, but he washes that down with the Jack too.

~*~


	4. Singin’ To Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Cas wakes up._

It’s been eight days and eleven hours. Dean doesn’t understand how Cas isn’t dead, if he’s human. He looks a little thinner, a little paler, but the wounds on his back have scabbed over completely and his skin feels warmer to the touch. Not that Dean keeps touching him, of course. That would be weird. But he changes bandages every day, and every time he does, the wounds look better. Though he can see the scars will be ugly.

It was weird, the first time, to see Cas like that. Dean’s only seen him without his shirt once before, and that was for a very brief moment. It also involved Cas wearing a huge Enochian sigil carved into his chest, so naturally that was what drew Dean’s attention. Those scars are gone. When he cleans Cas’s wounds now, turns the angel over to his side, Dean has time to really look. Cas is pale everywhere, and thin, with sharp hipbones Dean could trace with his fingertips if he wanted. Which he doesn’t. Because _weird_. But he can sit and watch Cas’s chest rise and fall slowly; even put a hand on the angel’s ribcage to make sure he’s really breathing. Feel the warmth of his skin, feel his heartbeat. Dean doesn’t think Cas used to have a heartbeat.

“Dean, Dean.” Sam tugs at the leg of his jeans like a small child, making a small, distressed noise.

“What’s up, Sammy?” He ruffles his baby brother’s hair, like he used to when they were kids and Sam woke up from a nightmare.

“Cas, ‘sleep,” Sam points out helpfully. He looks worried, brows furrowed. He’s squirming on the bed, but it’s a long way from thrashing so Dean’s not worried.

“He’ll come around.” He sounds surer than he is, and it works. Sam relaxes and smiles, one of those delirious ones that make him seem high. _Better high than low,_ Dean thinks and tries to smile back.

Sam falls asleep, and Dean dozes with him for a couple of hours. When he wakes with a start, sitting up sharply in his hideously uncomfortable chair, it’s Sam who wakes him. “Dean?” his voice sounds clearer now.

“Yeah?” Dean blinks his eyes open.

“I think Cas is waking up.” Sam stares at the bed on the other side of the room, looking fully _there_ for the first time since the big fight. Dean spins around.

Cas is moving. Not much, but enough that it’s noticeable. He’s frowning lightly and shifting, breathing becoming erratic.

“Looks like he’s having a nightmare,” Sam points out, and he’s right. It does.

“Cas? Hey, Cas.” Dean moves over to sit on Cas’s bed, and puts a hand on the angel’s shoulder.

Cas’s eyes slam open and he looks wide awake instantly, like he’s been napping for a few minutes instead of a week. He sits up abruptly, nearly colliding with Dean in the process, and starts speaking rapidly.

The only problem is that there’s no sound. None. Cas babbles at Dean, mouth flapping, and Dean wonders briefly if Cas maybe just forgot how to use his vocal chords. And then Cas’s eyes widen further, his breath hitches, his fingers move up to his throat, and Dean _knows_.

“Oh fuck,” he says weakly, and Cas goes ballistic.

It’s the first time Dean has seen Cas behave like an animal. When Dean was sent to the future he was met with a broken, fallen, human, _high_ version of Cas, one that lived just for the hell of it. The sex and the violence was a bit caveman-ish, but not animalistic. It was _human._ Dean’s never seen Cas like this; completely out of control.

Cas claws at his bare throat until his fingernails tear the fragile skin. He kicks with his feet, trying to push himself back and away from Dean, still talking - _screaming_ \- things without making a sound. Dean doesn’t think he’s speaking English anymore; thinks he’s gone over to Enochian. Cas’s eyes are hazy with fear and glassy, like he’s about to cry.

“Cas! Hey!” Dean grabs the angel’s (not an angel anymore, Dean, what the fuck are you gonna do about this) wrists to stop him. “Calm down!”

Shouting at the freaked-out ex-angel is probably not the best way to go about things, Dean realizes when Cas flinches like he’s been struck. And it doesn’t help, because instead of calming down Cas seems to focus all his energy (which is scarily little) on getting away from Dean. He twists and squirms desperately, panting and almost falling out of the small bed in the process, kicking at Dean. Dean can hear the first sound, now; a loud hissing noise Cas’s throat makes, and it occurs to him that Cas is screaming in terror.

Cas is _screaming_. “Bobby!” Dean yells, because weak or not, the guy’s desperation and adrenaline is making it hard to keep him still without hurting him. Dean’s sure he’s already bruised Cas’s wrists. “Bobby, get down here!”

Cas hisses like a cat and twists his whole body around, finally falling off the bed and down onto the hard concrete floor with a slam. Dean follows suit, because he’s not letting go of Cas’s wrists, and he grunts when he hits the ground shoulder-first. Cas doesn’t stop struggling, though he’s getting exhausted and the fall must have hurt him. His face is red with exertion, another thing Dean hasn’t seen before, and the wings of his nose flare white. His eyes are staring straight past Dean, and tears are slipping down his face. Dean doesn’t think Cas notices.

“What’s goin’ on?” Bobby says as he walks into the panic room.

“Cas’s gone crazy, Bobby,” Sam says in a small voice from his own bed. “Like me, almost.”

“Cas, dammit! Calm the fuck down!” Dean yells even though he knows he shouldn’t, and rolls until he’s on top of Cas, pinning him to the floor. Cas shakes his head rapidly, mouth moving in the same pattern - _Ahman, Ahman_ , Dean knows it is, though he doesn’t know how - and tries to squirm his way out of Dean’s grip.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?” Bobby asks, looking distressed despite his gruff tone.

“He can’t speak, Bobby. He doesn’t have a voice.” Dean’s panting now, the effort of keeping Cas still taking more out of him than he’d thought, and he pins Cas’s hands against the ex-angel’s chest.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Bobby says quietly, which scares the shit out of Dean because it sounds so _final_.

Cas takes the opportunity to bite Dean’s hand.

“Ow! _Fuck!_ ” Dean lets him go, because _fuck_ , Cas bit _hard_ , and Cas manages to push Dean off and scramble away. Dean sees him scrape his knees and elbows in the process, but Cas is too far gone to notice.

He skitters away to the far end of the small room, clawing and hitting his fists against the solid metal wall. He’s crying now, Dean notices, crying freely, eyes closed like in prayer. That’s probably what he’s doing right now; praying to an absent Father to grant him his Grace, his Wings, his life back. To grant him a voice.

“What are we gonna do, Bobby?” Dean whispers, coming to stand shakily beside the older hunter.

“We let him run outta steam,” Bobby says quietly. “Only thing we can do for now, ‘cept drugging him.”

Dean lets out a sharp breath. Cas is curled up in the corner, still praying, bleeding fingertips scratching the walls. His whole body’s heaving with the force of his pants, and at this moment, Dean thinks he’s never seen anything less angelic, less holy. _It’s a long fall from Heaven_ , a spiteful voice whispers in his head, and then Dean’s out of the room and up in Bobby’s study, unscrewing the cork of his Jack bottle and drinking, drinking, drinking until he almost throws up. His whole throat is burning, like Cas’s must be right now, and he doesn’t come when Bobby calls for him. He drinks until the bottle is empty; can’t remember how full it was in the first place, and then he stumbles out of the house and across the scrap yard to his baby, crawls in and curls up in the back seat.

He doesn’t so much sleep as pass out.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ahman' is another name for God.


	5. Oh, I’m a Guilty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Cas hates._

Dean’s awoken by a sharp thump, and blinks his eyes open to stare at the ceiling of his Impala. A vicious hangover pounds against his skull, and it takes him a few moments to remember why he’s here. When he does, he almost throws up. Only the knowledge that he’s still inside his baby makes him press his lips together and breathe through it, breathe through the nausea caused by the alcohol and mental image of Cas crying like a baby.

Another thump and he glances at the windshield. Bobby’s out there, face carefully blank, and Dean’s stomach does another dangerous flip. He scrambles his way out of the backseat and opens the door, promptly falls on his face in the dirt outside, and retches as his stomach finally turns inside out.

“Wish I could say it’s a new look for you,” comes Bobby’s voice, as the older man stares at Dean lying sprawled there on the ground, covered in grime and vomit. Then he just turns and walks back into the house.

Dean stays there for a while, willing his head to stop spinning and his stomach to calm the fuck down. The bitter taste in his mouth is half puke, half self-loathing (just another Tuesday morning), and after a while, he knows he has to get up. Has to get back down, has to try and minimize the damage done yesterday. Even if all he wants is to find another bottle and do this all over again.

He stumbles into Bobby’s house and upstairs, changes his t-shirt and gets himself remotely cleaned up. He leans his forehead against the cool mirror in the tiny bathroom as he brushes his teeth, eyes closed. Then it’s down the stairs, into the panic room he’s learned to appreciate and hate _so goddamn much_ over the last couple of years. Cas is asleep on his bed, Sam is awake, and Bobby’s nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean tries.

“You look like shit,” Sam says and rubs a hand across his face. “The fuck did you do last night?”

 _Found a liquor store and drank it,_ Dean thinks and doesn’t say anything. Instead he walks over to Cas’s bed, quietly so he won’t wake the ex-angel. “How long’s he been sleeping?”

“I’m not sure,” Sam admits, continually rubbing the skin on his wrists. “He passed out an hour or so after you ran out, and as far as I know he’s been sleeping since.”

Dean nods. Cas’s wrists are strapped to the bed with the same leather bindings that used to be on Sam’s bed. His feet are strapped the same way. The ex-angel has angry red scrapes on his neck from his own nails, and dark bruises on his wrists from where Dean held him down. He looks worse than yesterday, Dean realizes - cheeks hollow, dark smudges under his eyes, lips dry and cracked.

“Cas?” Dean reaches out to put a hand on Cas’s shoulder.

The man shifts and blinks his eyes open, slower than yesterday. The moment he sees Dean, his eyes widen and he panics again. The only difference is that today, he’s strapped to the bed and can’t get away. He wheezes and fights the restraints, kicks until the leather around his ankles makes the skin there red and sore. His eyes are once again filling with tears, but that’s okay because Dean’s gonna do better today.

He has to.

“Cas, hey you,” he says in a soft voice, like he’s talking to a scared animal. He _is_ talking to a scared animal. “Hey, welcome back. Thought we’d lost you there for a while, champ.” He keeps his voice a low murmur, no matter how much he wants to shout at Cas to be _better_ , to be _okay again_. It makes him feel a little sick to coo at Cas like he’s a little kid.

Cas doesn’t stop struggling, but he fixes his eyes on Dean, terrified and confused. He opens his mouth to speak again, with just as much luck as yesterday.

Dean puts both hands on Cas’s shoulders to… ground him, or something. “Cas, you don’t have a voice. That’s why you can’t talk. Okay? Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you understand me?”

For a moment Cas just stares at him blankly, but then he nods.

Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Okay, good. Good, Cas. Do you remember what happened?”

Another confused expression, before something seems to clear in Cas’s mind and he presses both hands to his chest. Like he’s looking for something. The ex-angel closes his eyes and starts sobbing silently.

“I know, Cas. I know.” Despite himself, he lifts a hand to put it on Cas’s face. He looks so goddamn alone right now, so shattered, and Dean just want him to be _better_ , dammit. Cas was fighting for them, for Dean, Sam, Bobby and humanity, and he lost everything - even himself - because of it. “Hey, you’ll be alright. We’ll be okay, Cas.”

Cas’s red-rimmed eyes fly open, and whatever expression Dean was prepared for, fury and hatred was not it. Cas stares at Dean like he’s to blame for everything (which he is, so Dean gets him even if it makes his heart break), and _snarls_. He opens his mouth, and though Dean doesn’t understand, he figures the gist of it is _‘ALRIGHT?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ALRIGHT??!!’_ He’s trembling with anger under Dean, those accusing eyes boring into Dean’s wide ones, making him want to curl up and die.

“Cas, I didn’t m-“

Cas spits on his face.

He registers it long after it happens; something hot, sticky and wet sliding down Dean’s cheek. He stares at Cas, mouth open, unable to take in the implications of that single action. Cas _spat on him_.

Cas turns over on his side, as much as he can with his hands restrained, away from Dean. His jaw is set, face hard and unforgiving, gaze fixed on the panic room wall. As Dean stares, a single tear slips across the bridge of Cas’s nose, but the ex-angel ignores it. Doesn’t even blink.

Then Sam is there by Dean, on shaky legs, a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I think we’re gonna leave you alone for a while, Castiel,” Sam says quietly and leads a numb Dean away from the small bed. When they’re both outside the panic room, Sam wipes off the spit with the sleeve of his hoodie.

Dean doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at his brother. The phantom warmth is still there on his skin, Cas’s hateful look all he can see.

~*~


	6. I Know What I Have Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Sam struggles, Dean drinks, and Cas picks up a few tricks._

It’s Sam who goes into Cas’s panic room the next time. Dean stands on the outside looking in, fingers curled around the iron doorway as he watches his giant brother sit down on Cas’s bed with a bowl of soup and some bread. Sam’s talks quietly, so quietly Dean can’t hear what he says, but whatever it is it must be better than what Dean had to offer, because Cas doesn’t snarl at _him_. After a while, he even lets Sam dip the bread in the soup and feed it to him.

Dean wishes so badly he could be the one to sit by Cas’s bed; take care of him, feed him, pretend they’re okay. He doesn’t know what this sickening feeling of jealousy is, why it’s there, and it unnerves him.

When Cas has eaten a little, he curls back into a ball and ignores Sam. Dean’s brother doesn’t leave, though. He keeps a steady hand on Cas’s shoulder and sits there, not saying a word. It looks almost peaceful, Dean thinks, and has to turn and walk back upstairs. The moment feels too private.

Bobby’s out somewhere, he doesn’t know where. Dean looks through the kitchen after something to drink, just to take the edge of, and finally finds a bottle in a shelf in Bobby’s study, hidden behind a stack of books. It looks like old, cheap, Russian vodka. He had no idea Bobby had this, but he takes a swig anyway.

It almost burns a hole through his tongue and he sputters it out in the sink, eyes brimming with tears. “Fucking deserved that one,” he mumbles to himself and goes to get a glass, before looking through Bobby’s fridge for a soda or something. There’s an old bottle of ginger beer. Close enough.

He puts in just enough ginger beer to make it possible to swallow the stuff, and knocks down a third of the glass in one go. The alcohol makes him cough, and it tastes like shit, but already after twenty minutes he can feel himself start to grow numb. Good. Mission accomplished. He takes a deep breath and downs the rest of the glass.

He’s almost done with his third when Sam finally comes back up with the empty soup bowl. “Dean, Cas-“ but he stops and eyes Dean’s slouched pose, his barely-trembling hands holding the glass. “Jesus Christ, Dean, are you _drunk_? It’s three in the afternoon!”

Dean just snorts.

“Dean, I can’t- you have to pull yourself together, man,” Sam says and winces, before his eyes go momentarily hazy and he stumbles a little. “Fuck, ow.”

“Hey, you ‘kay?” Dean slurs and is up, prepared to support his brother if another Hell-flashback is on its way, but has to grip the table hard not to trip and fall flat on his face. Damn, that vodka had more punch than he thought. Awesome.

“Better than you,” Sam says and rubs his wrist with the pad of thumb, hard and fast. He glares at Dean. “Your breath smells like shit.”

“Well, ‘swhat this tastes like,” Dean says with a snort. “Why’re you rubbin,” he asks and nods towards his brother’s wrists.

Sam stops immediately. “I'm not. And- shit, I was gonna go tell you to talk to Castiel, but you can’t do that if you’re drunk. Goddammit, Dean.”

“No, ‘sfine,” Dean waves him off with a shit-eating grin. “I mean, wha’ can I _possibly_ do t’make him feel less about me, y’know?” He chokes on the laugh, but turns to stumble down the stairs anyway. Talk to Cas, fine. He can do that. Worst case scenario is that Cas spits on him again, or stares at him like Dean just ruined his life, or like Cas wishes he was dead. Or that Dean was dead.

No biggie.

“Dean! You can’t-“ But Dean can, and Dean will. He stumbles into the panic room and over to Cas’s bed, where he trips and sits down so fast Cas bounces a little.

“Ey, Cas.”

Cas looks at him, frowns, and turns away.

“Y’know wha’?” Dean slurs, the glass of ginger beer and vodka still in his hand. “ ‘fyou wanna be mad at me, sure. ‘Sfine. I geddit. I d’n even care. See? I don’ care.” He lifts the glass to his mouth and gulps down a couple of mouthfuls. They burn and make his stomach tumble, but hey, that’s nothing new. He can barely feel the burn anymore, and his vision’s all hazy. It’s good. He likes it that way; means he can’t see if Cas is crying again. Dean doesn’t like Cas crying. Wants him happy again, dammit. Wants happy Cas.

“Jesus, Dean,” Sam mumbles, but he’s sitting on his own bed now, fingers pressing against his temples, his breathing uneven.

Cas turns to meet his eyes again, before looking down at his half-empty glass. He nods at it.

“Wha’, this? This’ just shit, man. Jus’ shit.”

Cas nods at it again, hands curling.

Dean frowns. “You wan’ some?”

Cas nods and moves up to lean on his elbows.

Dean shrugs and puts the glass to Cas’s mouth, tilts. Cas chugs it down like a pro, fuck yeah, and just fucking keeps going until the thing’s fucking _empty_. “Oh man!” Dean grins and puts the glass down. “That was _awesome_!”

Sam’s curled in on himself on his bed, eyes scrunched shut.

“Ey Sammy, you alright?”

“Not really,” Sam groans as a tremble goes through him.

“ ‘Kay Cas, I’mma be right back,” Dean says and pats the angel reassuringly on his shoulder, though it kinda ends up hitting Cas in the face. The guy isn’t looking at him anymore, though, but whatever.

“Heeeey, Sam.” He practically falls on top of his brother. “You’alright?”

Sam groans and trembles.

Dean pets him on the head, ‘cause what the fuck else is he supposed to do, really? But it helps, or something, because Sam goes quiet and starts sleeping after a long, long while and sleeping’s good. It’s good. Dean kinda wants to sleep now too, tired. He goes back to Cas’s bed. “Cas, you better?”

Cas grins up at him, eyes wide and a little off, though that could just be Dean, actually, and nods. He’s crying, Dean thinks, but he’s smiling so it’s fine, and it’s only like five in the afternoon or something but Dean’s tired so he lies down. “Scoot over,” he mutters and Cas does, so it’s a tight fit but they’re both lying here, sort of staring at each other, and this is nice. It’s nice. It’s really nice.

“This is really nice,” Dean says.

Cas is crying again, and shit. Fuck that. “Hey Cas, Cas, don’ cry.” He pats Cas’s shoulder, who does this weird sort of gesture that Dean thinks means ‘more to drink please’, and he shakes his head. “Nothin’ more, Cassy. ‘sempty.”

Cas sighs and rolls over until his face is pressed against Dean’s neck, and this, this is really nice. Like, before was nice too, but this, this is really nice. _Really_ nice. Dean can almost pretend Cas doesn’t actually hate him. Awesome.

They fall asleep like that, the both of them. Dean wakes up eight hours later, when Cas throws up all over him.

~*~


	7. Until I Go and Cross the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Cas is human, Sam is crazy, and Dean is surprisingly sober._

“I think,” Dean says slowly, “I think I need to quit drinkin’.”

Bobby sends him a lingering look. “Really?” It’s not a question.

Dean sighs and closes his eyes, leans against the stair railing leading down to the panic room and tries to will away his headache. He’s had to wash away puke all morning, even strip Cas of all his clothes and shift the bandages, and now the ex-angel’s sleeping with two Aspirin in his system and all the alcohol out of it. And that - drinking himself into a stupor - is basically the first thing Cas has done as a human. Because he learned from Dean that it was somehow a valid coping mechanism - which it _is_ for the Winchesters, in a way, always has been - but Cas isn’t a Winchester.

Cas is Cas.

And Dean, like the drunken fucking idiot he is, basically forced booze down Cas’s throat even though he knows, he _knows_ where that road leads. He even has a vague recollection of cheering on Cas as he gurgled down the booze, which jesus, Dean, way to go. And Cas had been crying, leaning against Dean, his hand fisted Dean’s shirt in a white-knuckled grip, and Dean doesn’t even know what to do with that piece of information. Well, he knows what he _wants_ to do, but finding the nearest bottle just isn’t an option anymore. Apparently Cas plays monkey-see, monkey-do, so Dean’s gotta set some sort of an example.

They untied Cas this morning. He hasn’t tried to struggle or yell, just lies there on his little cot with a blank expression. It reminds Dean of Cas when he’d just come back from Angel Boot Camp, newly erased, except this time the expression’s all human and thus twice as fucking scary.

When Dean hears Cas’s bed squeak in that ‘person sitting up’ kind of way, he’s on his way downstairs immediately. Bobby stays seated right where he is, and Dean can feel the hunter’s eyes on his back. “Cas?”

Cas is trying to stand up, and not doing such a good job at it. He’s wobbling, his legs threatening to give out on him, and Dean crosses the room so he can hook an arm around the angel’s skinny waist. He feels Cas’s too-sharp hipbones under his fingers, one of Dean’s old t-shirts the only thing between them and Cas’s chilled, sweaty skin. “Hey, hey, whoa. Whadd’ya think you’re doing there, buddy?”

Cas refuses to look at him, but there’s a distinct redness creeping into his cheeks and jesus, is Cas _blushing_?

“Hey, just tell me, man.” Dean winces at the phrasing when Cas sends him a look that is so hurt, so _lost_ he wants to give the angel a hug. “Sorry, that was- can you point, or something? Gimme a hint?”

For a moment longer, there’s only Cas’s stare on him. Then one of his hands creep down to rest lightly on his crotch, and Cas winces.

“Oh! You gotta pee? Okay, that’s fine. D’you want to…” but when he tries to let go, Cas legs nearly give out on him, and in the end, Dean has to help him up the stairs and into the little bathroom on the first floor. “Okay, I think you should just sit down for now, ‘kay?” Dean says and lets go, so Cas can lean against the wall. “Just… pull down your pants and sit down, and let nature do its thing. ‘S not hard. I’ll be right outside.”

Cas gives him another one of those oh, so human looks, but Dean shuts the door behind him before Cas can mime that he needs help or something. Jesus, will they have to teach Cas _everything_? Does he even remember the stuff he used to, now that he’s human? “Oh, and remember to shake it off and wash your hands,” he says through the door, and half expects an answer. He doesn’t get any.

Cas takes ages in there, enough that Dean starts to get worried. He resists the urge to pace outside the door like some kind of guard dog, and raps his fingers lightly against it instead. “Cas? You okay, man?” He considers opening the door, but in the end he doesn’t dare. It’s awkward as hell to walk in on Sam taking a leak, but with Cas it’s just… wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

Flush. Dean breathes out in relief at the sound, and moves away from the door when he hears water running. Another minute - too long, too long - and the ex-angel opens the door to half-stumble into Dean with a huff. Cas looks exhausted, his skin almost grey in the harsh light spilling out of the bathroom.

“You okay?” Dean asks, and Cas shrugs. Dean’s never seen him shrug before. “Did you…. do what you need to do?” The question’s stilted, and Cas doesn’t answer. He just starts walking towards the couch in Bobby’s living room, one hand gripping Dean’s shirt tightly for balance. He’s hunched slightly over, Dean notices, his balance off, and he wonders if Cas’s wings used to weigh something even if they were incorporeal. Or if it’s just the scars that hurt.

“Where you heading, Cas?”

Cas stops, and after a moment’s thought he points at the couch and sighs.

“You’re… too tired to go back down?” Dean tries, and is a little proud when the angel nods and keeps walking.

Cas collapses onto the couch and curls up on his side, wincing when the action causes his bandages to shift. He doesn’t look around, doesn’t look at Dean, just closes his eyes and hitches a breath. He’s trembling lightly, and it hits Dean that maybe Cas is freaking out a little too here, what with the whole peeing issue. It must be pretty weird if you’ve never done it before.

“Hey, you get used to it after a while.” He kinda wants to pat Cas on the shoulder, but that didn’t work out so well the last time he’d tried so he stays where he is. “I’m- I’m sure you did fine.” What the fuck’s he supposed to say, really?

Cas shudders almost imperceptibly and doesn’t open his eyes.

“You hungry? You gotta eat something; I can get some soup,” Dean offers, but Cas just shakes his head. “You gotta eat something, Cas.” Another headshake. “But- okay, fine, so not right _now_ , I get that, but… later. When you wake up again.”

A silent shudder of laughter goes through the angel, his face scrunched in pain rather than amusement. Dean knows what it means. _I wish I don’t wake up again._

“Cas…” He has no idea how to continue that sentence.

Cas waves him off, an angry little motion with one hand, and hisses quietly.

“Okay. I’ll go.” Dean slips out of the room without another word, back down the stairs to check on his brother. “Sam, how you feeling?” _Please be okay,_ he thinks bitterly. _I can’t do this shit on my own._

Sam doesn’t answer; he’s busy staring at the opposite wall, eyes wide. He fidgets and looks down on his hand, then back up, back down, back up, back down, up, down, up, to the side and down again.

God-fucking-dammit. “Sam.”

“I don’t know who hid them!” Sam cries out, too loud, to the invisible someone on the other side of the room.

“Jesus,” Dean whispers and sits down next to his brother. “Sammy. Hey, it’s Dean. Look at me.”

Sam’s eyes are unfocused, but there’s a spark of recognition and he glances in Dean’s direction. “Ssshh,” he whispers to Dean. “You’ll scare the colors.”

“Sam, _here_. Stay here with me and Bobby and Cas,” Dean says and grips his brother’s hand, _hard_. He pulls on Sam’s fingers until he knows it’s gotta hurt. “Snap out of it, bro!”

“Not the eyes!” Sam squawks with terror and buries his face in Dean’s shirt without warning, almost knocking them both over.

“Fuckin’ Raphael,” Dean spits bitterly. “You’re okay, Sammy.”

“Dean,” Sam sobs into his shirt, voice so muffled Dean can barely hear it. “He’s staring, always staring, can’t stand it, make him _stop_ , Dean.”

Dean closes his eyes, feels them sting, takes a deep breath and puts a hand on Sam’s sweat-damp neck. “Only us here, Sammyboy. Only you and me.”

“You’nme, you’nme, you’nme,” Sam mumbles into his shirt, over and over, his huge body trembling like a kid’s. His warm breath’s making Dean’s shirt damp, though Dean suspects some of the wetness is tears. “You’nme, D’n.” Just like when he was seven, and Dad wasn’t back yet. When Sam couldn’t sleep and was worried about Dad, and Dean held him close until the little octopus fell asleep wrapped tightly around his big brother’s torso, and it was the two of them against the world.

“ ‘s right, Sam, you and me.” Dean’s little brother clings to him like his life depends on it, and Dean thinks about how Cas doesn’t have anyone to cling to; how he probably doesn’t _want_ to cling to anyone right now. He thinks that maybe, if Cas let him, if Cas _wanted_ him to, Dean could do the same with his fallen angel. Could pull him close and mutter soothing phrases of bullshit like _you’re gonna be okay_ and _it’s gonna be fine_. Dean could do that.

But for now, there’s only Sam. So Dean holds Sam, and sooths and talks and holds, and tries to pretend he’s not thinking about how fucking good it would be right now with a beer - or seven.

~*~


	8. Did You Find Your Bitch in Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Dean sees John._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for brief ableism.

Sam is doing a little better, they think. Even Sam thinks so. Cas is not doing better. Dean has no idea what Cas thinks about much of anything, these days. And Dean… Well, Dean’s just having the fucking time of his life, right now.

“Quittin’ cold turkey, Deano?” Bobby asks the first day. The first day comes the shakes. They’re not too bad, really, and not new, either. Dean’s gotten a little trembly before, if he hasn’t drunk anything for a couple of days, when the craving for more booze became an itch he’d just _have_ to scratch. But it hadn’t been too bad then - he’d just take a drink, and it would go away.

Dean knows Bobby’s thrown out everything in the house with an alcohol percent above 2, and he’s glad. Well, his brain is. His body’s cursing Bobby, cursing Dean, cursing everything, and taking it out on itself. Within the first 24 hours, Dean’s on Cas’s cot downstairs, curled up on his side and shaking.

“You look sick,” Sam says in his little-kid voice, looking over at him from his own cot.

“I guess I picked the wrong day to quit drinkin’,” Dean says with a strained grin, tremors wracking his body. He can smell whisky, though he knows there’s nothing of the kind in the house, and he just _wants_. God, he wants.

Sam smiles at the Airplane reference, and after a moment’s thought, he pushes himself off the bed and shuffles over to Dean. “You’ve got a fever,” he says after placing a huge palm on Dean’s forehead.

“Fuckin’ figures,” Dean mumbles, the muscles in his body doing their own thing. It _hurts_ , dammit. Every muscle, every bone hurts like fuck, and the back of his brain is screaming at him to just open a fucking bottle of beer, nothing worse and this will be all over, they can just pretend it never happened, and Dean closes his eyes and wills the voice to shut the hell up. He’s glad Bobby’s upstairs, keeping an eye on Cas.

Sam keeps glancing over at the corner, looking spooked, but other than that he seems fairly coherent. “How’you doin’ there, Sammy?” Dean manages to get out around chattering teeth.

“He’s there,” Sam says quietly, “Lucifer. He’s always there. But- but he’s not real.” He looks a little proud at that statement, like it costs him a lot just to say it out loud. It probably does.

“That’s right, Sammy.” Dean manages a smile.

The tremors aren’t too bad- okay, fine, so they’re fucking hell and all he can think about is something to drink. He imagines impossible scenarios in which he sneaks out of the house and hot-wires his baby (Bobby hid the keys, the mean old fucker), before driving into town and falling into the nearest pub. But other than that, he’s somewhat okay.

That’s until he falls asleep, and wakes up the next morning to find his father looking back at him.

“Hey, son,” John says in his gruff, half-amused, half-annoyed voice. He’s standing by Dean’s bed, between him and Sammy, looking like he did right before he died. Before he did the deal with Azazel.

“Aw, shit,” Dean whimpers.

“Dean?” Sam says looks up from his bed, hair sticking out in weird angles, face scrunched with sleep.

“Nothin’, Sammy,” Dean says quietly, although he’s still staring at the hallucination of his father. “Go back to sleep.”

“What’re you lookin’ at?”

“Nothing.” _You’re not here. You’re dead. You’ve been dead for years._ The knowledge doesn’t help at all. If anything, it makes the hallucination seem clearer to him.

“Is that what I am, now?” John asks with a half-smile. “Bobby takes over the Daddy role, and John’s nothing? Didn’t think you were that adaptable, Deano.”

Dean swallows and doesn’t answer, because there’s no one to answer to. He suddenly feels a lot more sympathy for Sam, with his own demons whispering in his head. A part of him wants to tell the kid, but in the end he doesn’t. It would mean questions from Sam he can’t answer, _won’t_ answer, because jesus, at least _one_ of them has to be somewhat mentally stable and for now, that one person’s got to be Dean.

So if he could just stop hallucinating, that would be awesome.

“Your brother looks good,” John says and sits down on the end of Dean’s bed, glancing over at Sam. “All things considered. I’m surprised he’s even lived this long.”

Dean doesn’t answer and doesn’t agree. He doesn’t.

“I wonder what he sees,” John says. “He’s seeing, who? The Devil? The guy he spent a hundred years in Hell with. Almost as long as me. And Sam didn’t break, either.”

Dean closes his eyes and _begs_ the hallucination to go away.

“It’s nice to know one of my boys followed in his old man’s footsteps,” John murmurs, and he sounds proud of Sammy.

Dean rises from the bed, gets up so fast he’s dizzy and his trembling legs threaten for a moment to give out on him, and walks upstairs. Foolishly hoping his father will stay downstairs, with Sammy. He stops in the living room doorway.

“He’s starin’ at you again,” John points out, right next to him.

Cas is curled up, like always, on Bobby’s couch, but his eyes are half-open and gazing at Dean. He frowns at Dean’s shivers, his glazed-over eyes, and tilts his head a little in question.

“S’nothin’, Cas,” Dean says with a voice that sounds scraped raw. “Just my brain wanting a drink, is all.”

Cas frowns, but doesn’t say anything (of course he doesn’t), and after a while, his eyes slide shut.

“He’s gonna die, y’know,” John says next to him, looking at the no-longer-angel.

Dean flinches.

“He’s not eating, not drinking… you’ve noticed. He doesn’t wanna be here, Dean, why would he? He’s stuck with you, and your crazy brother. You didn’t pay attention and Sam got hurt. You got Cas’s only friend killed, and now that he’s stuck here, you can’t even help him. You’re just waiting for him to keel over and not get up again.” John shrugs and sends him an amused look, and Dean’s suddenly struck with a memory of his father with bright yellow eyes and a cold laughter. “Guess you two are more alike than you thought,” John says calmly. “Either of you try to deal with the real life, and look how you’re doing.”

Dean takes a deep breath. Cas doesn’t move. His chest is barely moving, his skin so pale and grey.

“Would make things a lot easier for you, though,” John muses. “Bury the angel, and you can go back to the family business with you brother. Do something real with your life, something useful, instead of wasting away here.”

Dean turns away from Cas’s still form and walks to the bathroom, his whole body trembling. There’s a headache pounding behind his skull and a scream trapped behind his lips, and he grips the door jamb so hard it hurts, yanking it open.

“But you won’t. And we both know why that is, don’t we, Dean?”

Dean slams the bathroom door shut, and he knows Cas flinches from the couch at the startling noise. He grips the sink with white-knuckled hands and splashes ice-cold water in his face, splashes until he coughs and his face feels on fire. He keeps his eyes shut tightly and breathes through his mouth; can’t handle the smell of old aftershave and alcohol and _Dad_.

“I wish I’d never made that deal,” John says behind him, and Dean feels the ghost of a hand on his shoulders. “If I’d been there, maybe Sam would’ve been alright. Maybe he’d never died, or met Ruby. Maybe he’d never started the Apocalypse, if he’d had someone looking after him that wasn’t so self-centered.”

Dean slides down to the floor, palms pressing hard against his eyes, bright showers of sparks visible behind his eyelids. The wall is cool against his back, the floor hard, and he sits there and just tries to breathe, to block out the voice that’s not his father’s, to erase the words he knows his Dad would never say.

“It’s okay, Dean,” John says in that soothing, calm voice of his. His voice is right in front of Dean. “It’s not your fault you can’t do this. That’s just who you are - who you’ve always been. The only things you’ve ever been good at is hunting, and drinking. Everything else just falls apart around you. Our family, Sam, Lisa and Ben. Cas.”

It’s not a sob that’s forced out between Dean’s tightly pressed-together lips. It’s not. He can feel himself sweating, feel his heart rate increase as his breath starts to stutter, light, pleasant pain where his nails digs into the soft skin just above his eyelids.

“Dean?”

 _I’m not here,_ Dean thinks stubbornly. _I’m not here, you’re not here, it’s all just nothing and it’s gonna go away and it’ll be just fucking **fine**_.

“Dean.”

It’s not John’s voice. It’s Bobby’s. Bobby’s here, Bobby’s real. “Y- yeah,” Dean manages, his voice quivering without his permission.

“Ya okay in there?” Bobby asks through the closed door.

“Y-“ but the rest of the word won’t come out, and in the end he just stays quiet while Bobby opens the door and walks in.

“That shit in your system playin’ tricks on you, huh,” Bobby says softly and lends him a hand.

Dean takes it after a moment, when he notices that John’s gone, and they walk back out in the living room. Dean tries to breathe properly.

“I tried once,” Bobby says quietly when they’re back by the old hunter’s desk. Dean sits on the floor, leans against one of the numerous book cases in the house, and watches him with sore eyes.

“Tried what?” he asks.

“Quittin’ cold turkey. Had to give it up after a day or two,” Bobby says and starts flicking through the pages of some book. Dean can’t see which book from where he’s sitting, but the sound is comforting. Familiar.

“Why?” He sounds like a kid, Dean realizes; like Sam does, these days.

“Karen started showin’ up,” Bobby says and looks down at him. He looks older than time. “Pestered me ‘bout all kinds a’ things I hadn’t’ done well. There were lots of things I hadn’t done well.” He snorts. “After two days, I walked from here to the nearest gas station.”

“But you’re okay,” Dean hears himself say, fingers digging into the soft, worn carpet.

“Kid, I ain’t okay by a long shot. None of us are. But I’m holdin’ my own.” Bobby rubs a calloused hand across his face. “Have you thought about where you’re goin’ from here, Dean?”

“Goin’?” Dean’s tired now. John’s not here at the moment, and he feels safe in Bobby’s presence. He just wants to sleep.

“You gonna keep hunting, with Cas in tow?”

“No, I- I can’t do that. Cas should live a-“ Dean does a vague gesture, “normal life.”

“So you’re gonna dump him off somewhere and go back on the road with your brother,” Bobby concludes. His tone isn’t accusatory, mostly curious.

“I don’t- yeah, maybe. Or something.” Dean shrugs.

Bobby shakes his head and mutters ‘dumbass’ under his breath.

“What?”

“You’re just gonna drop him off somewhere like a pet?” Bobby snorts again. “You don’t think Cas’s got a little something to say ‘bout that?”

“Well, considering he can’t talk, no.” He regrets it as soon as he’s said it, even if he knows Cas can’t hear. And he doesn’t want to concede that Bobby has a point - he’s thought about this, briefly, but never really given it thought. It’s just about keeping Cas alive, for now, and hauling Sam back from that brink of madness in the kid’s mind. Especially with the alcohol wreaking havoc on Dean’s senses, he just hasn’t got the energy to think about the future.

“Idjit,” Bobby mutters.

“What do you want me to do, Bobby?” Dean asks, a little sharper than intended. The headache’s worse now, pounding against his skull like it wants to be let out of there. And he’s still terrified - though nothing will ever make him admit out loud - of his father reappearing.

“This ain’t about me, kid,” Bobby says, “this is about you and that angel of yours.” And by that, he pointedly slams the book shut and leaves to find another one.

Dean stays on the floor until he falls asleep, thinking. Pretending he doesn’t hear his father’s soft laugh and slow clapping.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you found this depiction of John to be thoroughly out of character, you'd be right. This isn't John; this is Dean's guilt and crap self-value and alcohol withdrawal speaking to him in John Winchester's form.


	9. Scooped Our Way Into Your Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Dean and Sam talk about important stuff._

Dean watches Cas. The fallen angel has a nightmare; he shifts restlessly, forehead furrowed into a frown, mouth open and expelling small gasps. Dean has a pretty clear idea of what Cas is dreaming about.

Despite himself, he walks over and sits down on the table right by the couch. He watches Cas, like the angel once used to watch him, and it’s as if Cas senses his presence and finds it soothing, because he stills after a little while and goes slack. His breath evens out, the same does his forehead.

It confuses Dean, how relieved and happy that makes him feel.

“You think he’s dreaming about Balthazar?” John asks, standing by them. He peers down at Cas, looking half amused and half skeptic.

Dean doesn’t know.

“Maybe that’s why he sleeps so much. He gets to dream - gets to pretend that he’s still an angel. Must be nice, to feel like you haven’t lost everything. Though I guess it makes waking up that much harder.” John rubs his chin, looking lost in thought.

Dean rubs his eyes even if he knows it won’t help. His hands are still shaking, he still has a fever, and his father’s still standing in the room. Dean just wants to sleep. Like Cas.

“Well, lie down then,” John suggests. “You seemed to like it the last time you two were bunk-buddies. Pleased as punch, weren’t you, Deano?”

Dean flinches inwardly. He quashes the urge to lean forward and run his hand through Cas’s sweaty hair.

“I wonder if Castiel liked that,” John muses, “or if it was just the booze. Maybe he’ll start liking you again, if you pour some more down his throat. Worked for you for years, didn’t it?”

Dean rises quickly, careful not to make a sound, and goes back down into the panic room. Sam’s awake and looking… not well, but well enough, and Dean nods at him before collapsing onto Cas’s old cot and closing his eyes.

“You okay, Dean?”

“Been better, Sammy. Not gonna lie.” Dean buries his face in the pillow, can smell Cas there. John chuckles from somewhere in the room.

“You should sleep, Dean,” the hallucination of his father says, voice smooth as silk in a way his real father’s voice never was. “That’ll solve everything. Just ask your angel.”

Dean opens his eyes and sits up. So much for sleep. The need for sleep, for alcohol, for peace and something that feels awfully like _Cas_ is heavy in Dean’s stomach, churning until he feels nauseous and too full.

“I’ll be quiet,” John says and smiles, lifting a finger to his lips. “Not a sound, Deano. You won’t even notice I’m here.” His eyes glint with mirth, so painfully familiar and yet not, and _fuck_ , Dean misses his real Dad so fucking much right now. He looks away from the corner, and John laughs quietly.

“Dean?” Sam says, and when Dean looks over, his brother’s staring at him uncertainly. “I… I don’t wanna push or anything, but… who is it?”

“What?”

Sam points at the corner where John’s standing, watching his two sons. “Who are you seeing?”

“Nothing. No one. You’re the crazy person here, remember?” Dean smirks. It feels wrong on his face.

Sam nods and stays quiet for a long while; so long Dean thinks he’s given up. He wants lie down and sleep, but he knows his dad - the hallucination of his dad - won’t let him be. So he just sits on the bed, staring at the dirty concrete floor, feeling shivers of feverish heat trail up and down his spine. God, he wants a drink so bad.

“Lucifer says he misses me.”

Dean sits up more fully. “What’s that, Sammy?”

Sam rubs the skin on his wrist hard. He doesn’t look at Dean, and his voice is low. “Lucifer. In my head. He says he misses me, misses us being bunkmates…” A hard smile ghosts over his face. “Misses my screaming.”

“Jesus.” Dean winces. “Sam…”

“He says stuff about you too,” Sam murmurs. “How you’re watching me, waiting for me to snap and try to kill you and Cas. How you’ve given up on me; how you’re just waiting for Cas to get better so the two of you can get on the road.” His smile is bitter. “Truth be told, I think _I’m_ more scared of going crazy than you are.”

“Sam,” Dean says, and his voice is soft in the hard room. “I haven’t given up on you. Not by a long shot.”

“I have,” John says quietly from the corner.

Dean flinches again, and this time he can’t hide it from Sam.

Sam doesn’t say anything about it. “Lucifer knows everything about me, Dean,” he says instead, hazel eyes refusing to let Dean’s go now. “That’s why it’s so hard to ignore him. I believe what he says, half the time, no matter how insane it is. Because he knows exactly what to say - knows exactly where it’ll hit hardest.” One hand curls over his heart briefly, before he takes to rubbing his wrist again.

Dean nods and lets out a sharp breath, sees Sam’s offer for what it is.

“Will you tell me?” Sam says after a period of silence, his tone almost begging.

Dean avoids his brother’s gaze. “Dad says hi,” he says, so quiet he half hopes Sam doesn’t hear.

“Hi, Dad,” Sam says, just as quietly, and looks towards the corner where Dean’s gaze keeps going. “Meet Lucifer.” He gestures at the doorway, smiling bitterly.

John flickers in the corner and doesn’t say anything. Then he’s gone.

Dean’s face breaks into a smile that hurts, hurts because he’s so fucking tired he can’t stand it. He lies back down. “Thanks, Sammy. For, y’know.” There’s a lot unsaid in that one sentence, but Dean’s pretty sure his brother hears all of it.

“No biggie,” Sam replies, even if it’s painfully clear just how much a biggie it is. Dean hears rustling, which probably means Sam has lied back down as well. A comfortable silence stretches.

“I’ll never give up on you, though,” Dean says into his pillow. “Never did it before, and fuck I’m gonna do it now.”

“I know. I just- I think we have to include Cas in that deal.”

Dean pries an eye open to see Sam lying on his cot, looking at Dean. His throat feels a little tight. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.” He misses Cas - misses _Castiel_ \- so fucking much.

“We’ll make it okay, Dean,” Sam whispers, and it sounds as much a question as it does a statement.

“Yeah,” Dean whispers back. “Yeah, we will, Sammy.”

They sleep.

~*~

John comes and goes for the next two days. Every time he stays too long, or his comments hit a little too close to home (which they all do, really), Dean finds Sam and stays around his little brother until the haze in his brain lifts a little. They take turns on helping Cas with getting to and from the bathroom, making him eat, making each other eat. Though John stops appearing after two days (thank god, thank fucking _God_ ), the trembling, fevers and migraines don’t. But Dean will take those any day, even with the phantom smells of Whisky everywhere he goes, even with the dry mouth and sleepless nights, the craving and the frustration and fear, because Sammy’s getting better and that means Dean isn’t so goddamn alone, alone in being so goddamn over his head. Even with Bobby here, keeping an eye on things, it’s just ridiculously relieving for Dean to have his brother back.

“Sammy?” He asks Friday morning. It’s been over twelve hours since John last popped by, over eight hours since Sam last went still, his vision hazy. They’re both in the kitchen, eating sandwiches. There’s a sandwich for Cas too, though they both know the angel isn’t going to eat it.

“Yeah?” Sam looks up at him from the newspaper he’s been absently skimming through, long bangs falling over his face. He needs a haircut, Dean thinks.

“What are we gonna do?”

Sam frowns.

“I mean, after all this- this.” Dean makes a vague gesture towards the living room, where Cas is lying. Probably sleeping. Cas is always sleeping, these days. “What… what do _you_ wanna do?” he finally asks.

“You mean, do we go back to hunting and bring Cas with us, or do we not,” Sam asks, but it’s not a question, not really, so Dean says nothing. “Dean. _Dean._ ”

“Yes, Sammy. What?” He can hear in Sam’s voice that he’s about to start one of his little speeches, and almost regrets asking in the first place.

“You can’t leave Cas. You realize that, right?” Sam sounds worried, worried about _Dean_ , and what the fuck’s that about? Dean’s fine. John’s gone, he doesn’t want to kill for a drink, Dean’s fine.

He’s fine. But he doesn’t answer.

“Dean, we are the _only_ people Cas has right now,” Sam says in that too-patient, too-reasonable voice of his. “He’s mute, he’s human, he’s weak and sick and he needs help.”

“I know that, I’m not stupid. I’m just thinking, after… after.”

“What, you think it’s gonna take a month or two to get Cas adjusted?” Sam snorts, and it’s a bitter sound. “He has to learn how to be human. How to communicate without talking. He has to find himself, and he needs to be safe while doing it. We don’t know if anyone’s still looking for him. And…” But Sam stops himself there, his gaze flickering.

“What, Sam?” Because if they’ve dug this far down, might as well get it over with. Dean’s stomach is churning again.

“Well, if we were to drop him off at some rehabilitation center or some shit,” Sam says, “what does that tell Cas about us? He _died_ for you, Dean. And he got his wings ripped out for the two of us. We owe him our lives - the least we can do is make him as… as happy as he can be down here, I guess.” Sam shrugs and looks miserable. Guilty.

Dean rubs his hand across his face. Sam is right. And really, when Dean thinks about it… he doesn’t think he could leave Cas even if that was the better choice. Cas is a part of the family now. To let him down would be like letting Sam down. The realization shouldn’t hit him like a punch in the gut, but it does. “So what, then?” he asks, and he can hear how tired he sounds. Goddammit, he’s tired. He’s just fucking exhausted with _everything_. And he can’t even drink to forget how exhausted he is. “We can’t bring Cas along to hunts. Not like he is now.”

Sam shakes his head. “I guess… we’ll just have to ask Cas when he’s better.”

“Yeah. When he’s better. Okay, good.” Dean rises from the table and grabs the remaining sandwich. Cheese, and nothing else. They don’t know what Cas likes yet. The angel hasn’t given them any indication. Whenever they get him to eat something - which isn’t often - he seems to chew and swallow the food on autopilot, barely tasting the food at all. “I’mma,” Dean says and doesn’t finish the sentence, just gestures at the sandwich.

Sam nods. “Have fun.” It’s dryly spoken, but not mean. Mostly tired.

They’re all just _tired_.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says when he enters the living room, and places a hand carefully on the man’s shoulder. “Lunch time.”

Cas opens his eyes like it hurts him to do so, and shakes his head a little.

“C’mon, man. You gotta eat.”

Another shake, and Cas curls further in on himself. His t-shirt rides up, and Dean sees how sharp and protruding his hipbones are. He’s sure that if he pulled the shirt up further, he’d be able to count all of Cas’s ribs.

“Please, Cas,” he finds himself whispering. “Just a couple of bites.”

In the end, Cas eats four bites of the sandwich before he falls back asleep. Dean slinks back into the kitchen and throws the rest of the sandwich, failure a bitter taste on his tongue and his father’s phantom laugh in his ear. He wants to quash the thought, but he can’t; that give this a few more days, a week or two, and they won’t need to think about Cas’s future at all.

~*~


	10. Suddenly it All Becomes Clear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Cas doesn’t eat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning this chapter for graphic force-feeding, and brief mention of one long-past situation of child abuse.

Cas isn’t eating. Dean can get maybe half a bowl of soup in him each day, Sam another half if he has a good day. But it’s not enough, not nearly; especially since Cas is so weak as he is. Each day that goes by their fallen angel gets weaker, until he can’t walk by himself anymore and Dean has to half-carry him to and from the bathroom. Dean’s tried yelling, tried reasoning, even begged Cas to take care of himself so he won’t die. The angel just closes his eyes and mouth, curling into a fetal position on Bobby’s couch, and refuses to acknowledge him.

Dean’s _this_ close to take the Impala into town, car keys be damned, and buy a whole liquor store to drown himself in. Between his migraines and subsequent throw-up sessions, Sam’s hallucinations and Cas’s steady decline, he’s had _enough_. “Bobby,” he croaks out on the fourth day of Cas’s not-eating, standing in front of the old hunter’s desk. He can’t say anything else - doesn’t know what to say. What to do.

“You remember when Sam was a kid?” Bobby says over an old volume of the Bible, voice tired. He’s trying to figure out if there’s a way they can get Cas’s voice back. After days of research, there’s still nothing. “Eleven or something, wouldn’t eat nothing but those goddamn Lucky Charms?”

“I-yeah?”

“Remember what your old man did about that?”

Dean snorts. “He force-fed Sam with Lucky Charms ‘till he threw up. Hardly the most diplomatic solution for a twelve-year old kid.”

Bobby snorts and turns the page, rubs a hand across his face.

Dean arches an eyebrow. “And what’s that got to do with anything?”

Bobby glances at the doorway to the living room, where Cas’s sleeping (comatose) form is curled on the couch. “I’m sayin’ that sometimes, the diplomatic route doesn’t work, and that your angel there’s a stubborn twelve-year old.”

Dean blinks, wide-eyed. “You telling me I should _shove_ food down Cas’s _throat_?”

“I’m saying you should keep him alive,” Bobby snaps. “How you do that’s your own choice. But since directing them puppy-eyes at him ain’t working, you should come up with something else.” And he pointedly turns the page and ignores him.

“He’ll hate me for it,” Dean says quietly.

“I’m thinking he hates everything right now anyway,” Bobby mutters, but his eyes grow fonder around the edges. “Not like you got much to lose.”

Dean huffs a laugh without amusement. “True that.” And after a minute’s thought, he goes into the kitchen and makes some chicken-and-mushroom soup. His mind is carefully, suspiciously blank. When the soup’s done, he waits until it’s cooled down to body temperature. He pours it over into a bowl and brings it into the living room. “Cas, it’s dinner. Wake up.”

Cas frowns and jerks, but continues to feign sleep.

“Cas, I know you’re awake. Sit up.”

Cas blinks his eyes open and shakes his head stubbornly at Dean. His eyes are dim, their usually-piercing blue faded to a washed-out grey. His face is sunken, cheeks hollow, skin ashen and pale like old parchment, with four-day stubble threatening to grow into a beard. He smells, something Cas has never done before; sour, the smell of days-old sweat and bad breath. His clothes, which he’s worn for the last three days, are crumpled and stained, with sweat marks under the arms and around the collar.

It scares Dean, how this Cas looks worse than the future junkie version of him. At least junkie Cas had healthy color and personal hygiene. “Open up, it’s chicken soup.”

Cas shakes his head again, stubborn eyes trying to glare at Dean and failing, because the guy doesn’t have the energy to do it properly.

“Look, we can do this the easy or the hard way. I don’t wanna be a bitch, but you’re _gonna_ eat this bowl of soup.” Dean’s stomach turns. _Please, Cas. Don’t make me go there._

Cas snarls silently and closes his eyes again.

“Fine.” He puts the bowl down on the table, and pushes Cas so he’s lying on his back. Dean straddles his chest, effectively pinning the man’s arms with his knees, and tries not to flinch when Cas’s eyes fly open to stare panicked up at him. Even through two layers, Dean can feel Cas’s sharp hipbones dig into his ass, and he’s careful to not to sit on the angel’s chest, making sure Cas can still breathe.

“I told you,” Dean says with venom, fighting nausea and old memories whispering at the back of his skull, and grabs the bowl. “Now open the fuck up.”

Castiel squirms, but after four days with virtually nothing to eat, it takes only seconds before he’s too tired to fight anymore. He keeps his mouth stubbornly closed, though.

That’s not gonna work. Dean puts a pillow under Cas’s neck, tilting his head so it’s gonna be easier for him to swallow without choking. Then he pinches Cas’s nose, effectively cutting off the air flow.

Ten seconds, eleven, twelve, and Cas’s mouth flies open in a gasp. Dean’s there with the bowl at once, tilting it so a mouthful spills over the rim and into Cas’s mouth. A little of it spills down his jaw and throat, staining his already-dirty shirt, and Cas chokes, gulps, gasps and swallows. His eyes brim with tears, his hands clench desperately under Dean, and Dean wants to throw up at his angel’s panicky struggles.

But he repeats the process, over and over, no matter how loud the phantom screams ring in his ears. Every now and then he hears Alistair’s velvety, sulfuric voice whisper praises into his ear, and he ignores his own drops of tears that make their way down his cheeks. He doesn’t relent, doesn’t stop, until the bowl is empty and Cas is an exhausted mess beneath him. His angel’s face is covered tears, soup and spittle.

“Was that pleasant, Cas?” Dean’s voice is wrecked.

Cas sobs and turns his head to the side.

“I know. It was Hell. It felt like torture. And right now, it’s the only goddamn thing that’s keeping you alive.” Dean puts down the bowl before gripping Cas’s chin, forcing the fallen angel to meet his gaze. “And to be honest? If I gotta do this three times a day, every fucking day to keep you alive, I will _fucking do that_. You hear me? You don’t get to passive-aggressively kill yourself, Cas. I’m a fucking Winchester. I notice the signs. I’ve walked the walk, talked the talk, and I’m not gonna let you go down that road.”

Cas flinches, tears flowing faster as he talks without sound. _Don’t, don’t_ , it looks like he’s saying, cracked lips nearly sticking together whenever he close his mouth. His body’s shivering and shuddering under Dean’s.

Dean lets out a sharp breath and bends forward until his forehead’s resting against the other man’s. “Please, Cas,” he whispers. “Don’t make me do it again. Don’t let me force you.” He shifts, freeing Cas’s arms, but doesn’t move away. A part of him is afraid Cas will spit on him again, but mostly he just- needs Cas to _get_ this. He remembers, so much clearer than usual, feeding his victims their own excrement and entrails in Hell. This is vastly different, but too familiar. Too familiar.

He feels Cas’s hand touch his cheek gingerly, and when Dean pulls back a little to look into the angel’s eyes, Cas’s tear-streaked, messy and puffy face is scrunched in confusion. His thumb rubs Dean’s tears away, his breath slowly calming, and Cas sends Dean a questioning look.

“What?” Dean asks, voice trembling. “You think I enjoyed that?”

Slowly, Cas shakes his head. He looks thoughtful, but doesn’t seem to want Dean to move away. So Dean doesn’t. Instead he repays the favor; uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe Cas’s face clean, careful around the eyes. Cas watches him, and there’s too much in his eyes for Dean to figure out.

“I’m sorry,” Dean whispers, because he is. “I’m so fucking sorry. But that’s not gonna stop me from keeping you alive.”

Cas shudders a little, and his eyes turn misty again. He mouths _why_ , his breath mingling with Dean’s. They’re so close Dean can count Cas’s wet eyelashes, if he wants to.

“Why? Because…” Dean touches Cas’s cheek, feels how hot it is under his palm. “Because I need you to stay around, man. I… need you here.”

Cas swallows and stares. He looks frightened.

“Dean?” comes Sam’s slightly-panicked voice from downstairs.

Dean closes his eyes briefly and takes a sharp breath, before he pulls back. “I gotta go snap Sammy out of his head. You… gonna be okay, Cas?”

Cas nods, slowly.

“Are… _we_?”

Cas doesn’t do anything, but his gaze tells Dean _I don’t know_.

Dean climbs off of him and Cas shifts, rolling over to his side and curling back up. His eyes are still on Dean’s. “Get some sleep,” Dean says quietly, and almost reaches out for him before he chickens out. “I’ll be back later.”

Cas closes his eyes. Dean heads downstairs, trying to wrap his head around what the fuck just happened.

~*~


	11. I’ve Got Dark Only to Shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Dean fixes up Cas a bit, and Cas has an epiphany._

“Sit still.” Dean rubs shaving cream on Cas’s face, and covers his cheeks, chin and throat in the thick, white foam. Cas looks like he’s wearing a Santa-beard, and stares at Dean. It should be disconcerting, except Cas rarely looks at _anyone_ these days, so Dean actually welcomes the almost-piercing gaze.

He’d dragged Cas into the bathroom after spending hours in the panic room by his brother’s side, repeatedly assuring Sam that the sheets weren’t trying to eat him. When Sam finally fell asleep, into one of his restless, half-panicked dreams, Dean went back upstairs, filled the bathtub, and more or less carried Cas up into it. He’d even dared to stay around while Cas cleaned up; sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the door, eyeing the thin shower curtain that shielded Cas from his view. In the end he had to wash Cas’s hair for him, the man’s energy leaving him before he was done. Cas sat there, head bowed as Dean soaped him in, breathing calmly. He looked relaxed at the time, almost serene, and Dean also had the time to notice how much better his scars looked. That’s what they were now; scars. Not wounds, not anymore. The scars covered Cas’s entire back, but they didn’t look too bad, all things considered. Dean resisted the urge to trail his fingertips across them, just to feel how smooth the skin would be.

The most awkward part had been after, when Cas was drying off. The fatigue made him almost fall over, and even sitting down on the floor, he barely managed to do the job himself. Dean had to help out a little, his brain reeling at the sight of the fallen angel so weak, so skeletal, so _naked_. Cas looked embarrassed over his own body now, and seemed much more at ease once he’d been clad in a fresh pair of sweatpants and shirt.

Now he’s sitting by the kitchen table, half asleep, while Dean’s shaving him. They only had razor blades, not one of the electric shavers, and Dean volunteered when Cas had looked at it with puzzlement. To be honest, Dean’s mostly scared that Cas would end up slitting his throat - accidentally or not.

He works slowly, making sure not to do any sharp movements that could make Cas jump. Cas half-sleeps as Dean works, and when Dean’s done Cas almost smiles at him. It stretches the skin taut across his sharp cheekbones, making it even clearer hos bony his angel is.

Dean kind of wants to hug the shit out of the guy, but he resigns himself to a grin. “Lookin’ good, Cas.”

Cas touches his smooth cheek hesitantly, clean, pale fingers trailing across his throat and feeling the slight dip in his chin. He mouths at Dean, a word that could be _smooth_ , and Dean chuckles.

“Yeah, feels nice, doesn’t it?”

Cas nods, eyelids heavy.

“Here, I’ll help you back to the couch.” He slips an arm around Cas’s waist and lifts, supporting the fallen angel all the way over to the couch. He’s put fresh sheets on it, and when Cas lies down, he sniffs and burrows his head in the soft, scratchy material.

There’s a burst of hope in Dean’s chest he doesn’t know what to do with, so he settles for sitting down on the table beside the couch. “Hey, Cas. Somethin’ I’ve been wondering about.”

Cas pries his eyes open to peer at him.

“Can you write? I mean, do you remember how to write in English?”

Cas frowns and seems to consider it. In the end he shrugs.

“You don’t know?”

Nod.

“Okay, something to try tomorrow, then. But you gotta eat something before you go to sleep, Cas; there’s more of the soup on the stove. I can have it heated in a couple of minutes.”

Cas sends the kitchen an almost pained look and curls in on himself further.

“I know it’s shit. But once you get better, a little stronger, I’mma take you out for some real food.” Dean manages a pained grin and leans forward to ruffle Cas’s hair, which is still damp from the shower and smells like coconut (thanks, Sammy’s shampoo). “Hamburgers and pie, Cas. You’re gonna love it.” _Please love it, please God just like something. Gimme something to work with here._

Cas looks puzzled at the gesture, the physical touch, but not angry. He huffs and closes his eyes, and Dean leaves him be for the moment. He goes into the kitchen to reheat the soup.

When he gets back, Cas has already fallen asleep. Dean is loath to wake him up, but he knows he’s got to. Dean's angel needs at least four-five bowls of this every day, so he can put on a little weight.

Dean freezes when he realizes he called Cas his angel. “Cas? Hey buddy, you gotta wake up for a bit.”

Cas’s eyes flutter open and he hisses a little, but it’s not the defiant noise from before. Now it’s… more a general sound of discomfort, Dean concludes, which is fair enough. These soups taste like shit, even if they’re somewhat good for you. “I know. Just eat this, and I’ll let you sleep ‘till morning. Are you gonna do it yourself?” He doesn’t have to say _or do I need to shove it down your throat again;_ he knows Cas gets it.

Cas huffs and scrunches his eyes shut, seems to take a moment to gather some energy, and sits up. He gestures towards the bowl and Dean gives it to him. Cas scrunches his nose and gulps the soup down, like it’s poison and not food.

Dean stays right where he is, making sure Cas eats all of it. Enjoying the fact that it doesn’t seem like Cas hates him at the moment - though he’d be fully entitled to - and instead seems kind of pleased to have Dean around.

Bowl empty, Cas shoves it into Dean’s hands, who takes it and places it on the table. “Good job, buddy,” Dean says and squeezes Cas’s hand in something he hopes is an encouraging gesture.

Cas freezes when his chilled fingers comes in contact with Dean’s warm ones. He stares at their hands like he’s never seen them before, cheeks tinged pink, and Dean frowns. “You okay, Cas?”

Cas swallows and nods, absentmindedly, before skimming his fingers over Dean’s hand, tracing the lines of his palm with wide-eyed fascination. The touch is lighter than usual, almost a caress, and- wait, what?

Dean pulls back, not unkindly, and gets to his feet. Because whoa, back up here. “I’ll let you sleep now,” he says and walks into the kitchen without looking back. He rinses the bowl and does the dishes while he’s there, washes up the empty casserole and a couple of glasses no one’s bothered to take. He takes longer than normal, telling himself firmly that he’s not stalling. He doesn’t think about Cas’s flushed cheeks. At all.

When he walks back into the living room, Cas is still awake. Staring at him. It’s a different stare than the usual ones; an even more lost one, if that’s possible. He’s asking Dean for help in that silent way of his, grey-blue eyes pleading.

Dean averts his eyes and goes down to the panic room, so he can escape the gaze. This isn’t something he can help Cas with.

~*~


	12. Feeling Like a Loser, Feeling Like a Bum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Where Dean doesn’t quite know what to, but he tries anyway._

Sam hasn’t had an ‘episode’ since yesterday. When Dean asks him, sitting next to his brother on the cot down in the panic room, Sam gives him a tired smile and shakes his head. “He’s still talking, though.” He nods at the corner, where Lucifer’s hallucination is probably standing. “Never stops talking. Just- it’s okay, mostly. ‘Cause he’s not real. Sometimes it just becomes a little… much, is all.” He rubs his wrist, which is slightly red from the way Sam keeps worrying the skin there, and his eyes are shifty.

“You’re getting better, Sammy,” Dean says and pats his brother lightly on the back. “I can see it.”

Sam nods like he’s desperately clinging to that knowledge. He probably is. “Just… just wish he’d be quiet sometimes, is all. Just quiet.”

“Me too, Sam.”

Bobby’s meeting with a friend in Sioux Falls, about a possible case in Louisiana. Dean doesn’t know the details, doesn’t want to. He knows that if he gets them, he’ll need to go there and help. Knows it’s the same with Sam, no matter how fucked up they are.

Cas has eaten a bowl of soup today and two pieces of bread. Dean is cautiously hopeful. His angel’s also been awake for over an hour now, sitting up in his couch, currently trying to manage a pen. There’s a piece of paper on the table, filled with scribbles that are either written in a language Dean doesn’t understand, or just too unclear for him to be able to read.

Cas huffs, a frustrated sound, and throws down his pen. He rubs his fingers, an angry motion that emphasizes the deep frown he’s sporting.

“Hey, you’ll get there. You remember how to write, you’re just… rusty.” Dean’s sitting beside him, following the scribbling intently. He means it; it’s clear that even though Cas doesn’t remember all that much right now, he does know how to write. And they know he understands English. He just… needs some time, that’s all.

Cas sends him a slightly panicked look.

“You’ll get there,” Dean assures him. “We’ll figure something out. I mean, there’s gotta be tons of ways to communicate without talking, right? There’s writing, and there’s… there’s sign language! … Do you know sign language, by any chance?”

Cas scrunches his face in thought, before he shakes his head. He looks forlorn, and once again Dean has to quash the irrational urge to pull him close.

“Okay, but you can learn that. It’s not- it can’t be that hard, right?”

Cas stares down at his hand, moves it slowly. Curls it into a fist, uncurls it, and touches his fingertips with his thumb, one by one, repeatedly. He huffs again, an annoyed sound, and slams his hand down on the table palm-first hard enough that it’s got to hurt.

“Hey, hey!” Dean takes Cas’s hand to prevent him from beating himself up, and Cas flinches. “You’re not gonna make it better by ruining your hands, Cas.”

Cas stares at their hands, looking like a puppy not only kicked, but also spat on, beat, and abandoned in a cold, empty street.

“Look,” Dean says quietly. “Bobby’s looking for a cure. I’m looking when I can, the same is Sam. We’re gonna keep looking, but…There’s nothing there, Cas. We can’t get your voice back. You’re just- _We’re_ just gonna learn how to deal with that.” He pauses for effect, and to gather his thoughts. “You’re- You’re not on your own, Cas. You know? You’ve got me and Sam. We ain’t gonna leave you somewhere to rot and then go off hunting more stuff. We’ll stay here until you’re better, and until Bobby throws us out on our asses.” His lips quirk into a small smile, before he sighs. “After that… I dunno. We’ll figure something out.” He looks over at their little fallen angel. “You got that, Cas?”

Cas takes a sharp breath and makes a jerky motion that could be both a shake and a nod, and closes his eyes. He’s trembling, just a little, and while Dean watches, a tear slides down his cheek. Cas slumps, sort of, forward until his face is pressed against Dean’s shirt. Dean can feel Cas’s stuttering breath, warm and wet through the worn material, and his hands come up to wrap around the other man’s bony frame before Dean has the time to freak out about it. Cas clings to him, and Dean doesn’t know what the fuck to do here, so he just holds. Part of him - the part who’s not busy freaking the fuck out - wants to shout in joy that Cas doesn’t push him away, doesn’t hate him, despite everything Dean’s done to him.

“We’re gonna be fine, Cas,” Dean murmurs. “You’re doin’ good.” He rubs soothing circles on his angel’s back, slow, careful movements. Tries to ignore how nice this feels, Cas against him, chilled and upset but _alive_. “It’s only gonna get better from here.”

Jesus, he needs a drink right about now.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first (chronological) part of a much larger !verse, one I've worked on unsteadily since January 2012. Everything written up to then you can find on my LiveJournal page, where my username is the same as here. However, if you are willing to wait a little (and read these in their chronological order), I will be importing all the installments and posting them here on AO3. I'll also be going through them and checking for grammar mistakes and Mute!Cas canon inconsistencies.
> 
> Please feel free to comment - and if you have a prompt, you can find the prompt post here: http://princess-aleera.livejournal.com/168530.html . Thanks for dropping by!


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